First published 16 August 2021, when the coin exchanges listed was the community chain’s coin, not Telegram’s abandoned sale. Expanded in October 2026 for the rename. The native coin of The Open Network was called Toncoin, ticker TON. On 15 June 2026, after a community vote, wallets and venues started displaying it as Gram, ticker GRAM. The chain is still called TON. Ten of the old units are ten of the new ones. Addresses did not change. There is no migration.
A site, a form, or a support chat that tells you to claim GRAM, convert TON, or connect a wallet to receive the new ticker is not carrying out that vote. The rename was a label. The claim is a theft. This page is the label, the chain, and the sale that never became this chain.
Telegram sold a coin it did not ship
In 2018 Telegram raised about $1.7 billion for a network it called TON and a coin it called Gram. In October 2019 the SEC sued, and in 2020 Telegram settled and did not launch that network. The SEC’s Telegram case is about a token sale, not a chat app is that case. The messenger kept working. The coins from that sale did not become a public ledger you can withdraw to.
The software had been written in the open. A later group ran a network from that code. That network, The Open Network, is the one whose coin traded as Toncoin and now displays as Gram. Telegram ships a wallet and has used the chain. Telegram does not produce the blocks. A message in the app and a transaction on the ledger are different objects. Mixing them up is how the 2018 sale and the live coin stay one headline.
How the chain is shaped
The network uses proof of stake. Validators lock the native coin and produce blocks. The design can split into shards when there is more traffic, and merge them when there is less. Early distribution of the community coin included mining. Mining is not how new coins are issued now. Fees are paid in the native coin. The project describes ordinary transfers as cheap. Cheap is a parameter and a quiet month, not a right.
Accounts on the main workchain are usually shown as strings starting with EQ or UQ. Those two prefixes can point at the same account with a different bounce flag, which matters when the destination is not initialised yet. Do not edit the prefix by hand. Copy the whole string the receiver showed you. A Jetton is a token contract on the network. Tether’s dollar token on TON is a Jetton. What is Tether (USDT)? is that token. It is not Gram, and it is not TRON’s USDT either.
The memo did not change with the ticker
Many exchanges use one deposit address for every customer and a comment, sometimes called a memo, to tell the customers apart. The June 2026 rename did not add that field and did not remove it. If the deposit screen shows a comment, copy it. If it says the comment is empty on purpose, leave it empty. Inventing one is how a payment lands in a lobby. The wrong network is still the wrong city.
Nothing here is an instruction to buy, stake, or convert the coin. If your balance still says TON, you are looking at the same entry under the old label.
